Wildcat Dunny (Flickr)

After my post complaining about signal timing across Mercer for the South Lake Union Streetcar, I received a reply from Ethan Melone, SDOT Rail Transit Manager.

As reported, SDOT is going to stop the signal acceleration for Mercer, but is going to look at other techniques to make up the time:

First, we will field test signal timing and operations when the Mercer Corridor Project is completed.  This will give us more accurate results than is possible through modeling alone.  With real data in hand, we will work to optimize signal timing to balance the needs of east-west traffic through the Mercer Corridor and north-south transit in the Westlake corridor.  Our signal operations staff will field test a variety of iterations of signal timing and priority and tune the operation of the intersection to a finer level of detail than may be captured in transportation models.  We may be able to achieve the desired balance by increasing priority for the streetcar crossings of Valley Street while reducing priority for crossings of Mercer, for example.  We will also explore the potential for new approaches and technologies–such as schedule-based, fixed pre-emption windows and advanced detection technologies–to further optimize the balance between transit priority and traffic throughput.

He also mentioned the possibility of moving from 15 to 10 minute headways (using 3 streetcars) once Amazon moves into SLU, but that requires some money from Metro, so one can’t help but be skeptical.